


Autoclave

by niltia



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-26 19:52:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15670146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niltia/pseuds/niltia
Summary: The mark on Hank’s left arm saysLIEUTENANT ANDERSON, MY NAME IS CONNOR. I’M THE ANDROID SENT BY CYBERLIFE.It’s typed, honest-to-God typed, in some ultra-modern sans-serif font. It looks like something somebody would get tattooed as a bizarre joke, except that it’s also been on Hank’s arm since the day he turned fifteen.Hearing that phrase come out of an actual fucking android’s mouth is maybe the fourth or fifth worst moment of Hank’s life so far. Lucky for him, he’s already drunk.





	1. Chapter 1

Hank Anderson is one of about 8% of the population with two marks. It’s not uncommon, but it’s not that common either. For some people it means they’ll have two soulmates at once, for some people it means they’ll have one and then the other sequentially due to loss or death or other circumstances, and for some people it means they’ll have two diverging paths they could take in life. It’s really not predictable, and that makes it a little unusual despite the fact that the incidence of double marks is actually more commonplace that of having blue eyes.

The mark on Hank’s right arm reads, in shitty barely-legible handwriting that is a source of gentle ribbing between them when things are good, _God, I’m so glad to finally meet you. I’ve been hoping it was you._

The mark on Hank’s left arm says _LIEUTENANT ANDERSON, MY NAME IS CONNOR. I’M THE ANDROID SENT BY CYBERLIFE._ It’s typed, honest-to-God typed, in some ultra-modern sans-serif font. It looks like something somebody would get tattooed as a bizarre joke, except that it’s also been on Hank’s arm since the day he turned fifteen, just like the mark that eventually turned out to be for Heather.

Hank meets Heather in an information security course he’s taking as an elective for his criminal justice degree. She’s got a TA position for the course as part of her graduate degree in computer science, and she ends up being the person he emails with all his questions about the course. She’s nice, and funny, and intelligent, and from what he can tell from his seat all the way in the back of the room, she’s pretty. Maybe he’d ask her out if that wasn’t weird because she’s his TA and is probably just being so chatty over email with him out of social courtesy. They don’t actually physically meet in person until the very end of the semester, when he waits after class to thank her in person for all the feedback she gave him on his final project.

Obviously they know they’re soulmates immediately, but they put off marriage and having kids for a while because Heather is doing a demanding Ph.D. program and Hank’s got his own career goals too. Heather supports him through police academy after he graduates, he supports her through writing her dissertation. They just work great together, in every aspect of their lives. Heather jokes about his second soulmark, says maybe it’ll be an android she creates. She doesn’t laugh about it quite as much after androids become a real thing.

They move to Detroit because Heather gets a job offer from CyberLife. Hank thinks maybe she sees the mark on his arm as a sign that this is the direction their lives are supposed to go. Detroit is miserably cold compared to Los Angeles, but he’s happy. He hates the ice and snow and shitty pothole-filled roads, but he loves his wife and the son they’re blessed with several years later and he’s the happiest he’s ever been.

Hank’s marriage to Heather is good, it’s great, it’s perfect, up until it’s not. 

Hank grows bitter. Heather grows bitter. Grief will do that to you.

The second mark becomes a point of contention after the accident. Heather asks him how he could be soulmates with one of the things that killed their son. Hank fires back that at least he’s not the one who helped create the damn things, even though he knows damn well that isn't even her department. It’s one of many shitty things they say to each other, but it’s one of the few comments that lingers, that really eats him up inside, even three years later. 

Heather quits her career and their life together and she spits in his face and wishes him good luck fucking the tin can he’s clearly going to move on to. Hank drinks in response. Her words on his arm scar over, and he never asks but he assumes it’s the same for her. A soulmate bond breaking due to stress is grounds for no-fault divorce and that’s what she asks for. Then she never talks to him again.

—

Hearing those words come out of an actual fucking android’s mouth is maybe the fourth or fifth worst moment of Hank’s life so far. Lucky for him, he’s already drunk, so he manages to crush that feeling down like so many others and take a stab at actually doing his job, since it’s the only thing he’s good for anymore. 

Later on he deals with it by getting drunker than he’s been in a long time, which is saying something, and taking his old-style revolver out of his gun case to let it decide whether his job is even enough to live for anymore.

Of course then the smarmy prick shows up and does its damned best to keep him from killing himself by drowning in his own vomit, which he feels would really be a fitting end. Too bad. 

—

Over the course of the next 72 hours, Hank’s opinion on things ... changes. Connor’s still a fucking robot, but if hard-pressed, Hank might actually admit that they’re maybe becoming friends. Friendly. Something. Absolutely not fucking _soulmates_ , though.

Other androids, on the other hand ... three days ago Hank would have said that the idea of androids having soulmates was a fucking cosmic joke, because first you’ve kind of got to have a _soul_. Now he’s not so sure. He’s seen shit today that seems a lot more like the actions of things that might have souls, and he’s certainly seen some shit during his years on the force that has made him wonder whether some actual genuine certified humans have souls at all. The lines don’t seem so clear anymore.

—

Hank takes back his earlier assessment. The confrontation between Connor and ... not-Connor in the CyberLife warehouse is definitely the fourth-worst moment of his life so far. Hank is 500% certain that he’s going to die, Connor’s going to die, a whole bunch of other people are going to die, and basically that things are going to be pretty shit. 

Afterward, Hank still doesn’t really believe that Connor is the owner of the words on his other arm. But now it’s less because he thinks that’s impossible for Connor and more because he thinks that’s impossible for himself. He can’t say for sure what he feels about the android beyond desperately not wanting Connor to die, not wanting to have to kill him, and hoping that he gets the chance to figure out what it means to actually be alive along with every other person like him. 

Hank is pretty sure that Connor doesn’t have any fucking words tattooed on his arm. That seems like an oversight CyberLife would not have missed about one of their most valuable assets, shifty motherfuckers that they are. So Hank’s pretty sure Connor doesn’t mysteriously have a soulmark. But Hank thinks he’d maybe like him to.


	2. Chapter 2

Connor first sees the marks on Hank’s arms when he’s passed out drunk. He knows what soulmarks mean. Their presence, the clear text or the scarring, whether people cover them up, the reactions people have to the blankness on androids’ arms where a human would have a mark. 

Connor sees the marks, notes them, and doesn’t do anything about them. Hank clearly hadn’t wanted him (or anyone else) to see them, the way he covers them up. Connor doubts that Hank will remember enough of this in the morning to make the connection that they were on display right in front of him. 

Beyond that, Connor doesn’t think about the marks much at all for the next several days. He noted them and cataloged them and filed away the information, of course, but what he saw isn’t relevant to the investigation and he doesn’t believe that Hank would appreciate him bringing them up. It appears likely that Hank doesn’t have positive feelings about either mark, given that one is scarred and both are perpetually covered up. 

Amanda doesn’t say anything about them either, though she must have seen them in her review of his performance. Connor can’t say he feels relieved, exactly, because obviously he doesn’t feel, but he _had_ been anticipating a negative reaction from her and it’s ... convenient that she hasn’t made an issue of it. Calling it “fear” would be ascribing a human idea to what is simply a directive in his programming.

—

The moment Connor makes an active choice to become deviant, he feels the mark appear on his arm. He thinks it would burn, if androids could feel pain. Instead he just has a sudden awareness that something is there that was not intentionally put there by design and about which he has no knowledge.

Later, after things have resolved themselves for the moment and the sun has dawned on a new day, he pulls back his sleeve to inspect his left forearm. _What do you want_ is printed across the inside of his wrist in neat block human-handwritten script, no punctuation. It’s obvious what it is: a soulmark. It’s also easy to determine the original speaker of the words given his videographic memory of every conversation he’s ever had, not that that is necessary given that he’s already seen the mark’s match on Hank’s arm. The real question, for Connor, is this: is this naturally occurring, the way that human soulmarks are, through some mechanism that is outside current human understanding? Or is this something he’s unintentionally put there himself, a stray process fabricating this imitation of human life and human relationships now that he’s no longer constrained to act as a machine?

Connor lets his artificial skin melt away and the words are still there, stark black against the white underneath. His estimation of the likelihood that they’re genuine increases. 

It’s “mystical fucking bullshit,” as Hank would probably put it. Connor has never met another deviant with a mark, though he suspects Markus might be able to have one, and maybe others will in the future. 

When he tries to examine it logically (something humans don’t even really do about soulmarks), he thinks that maybe he’s gotten one because really, he’s been “deviant” his whole existence. He was made that way. Amanda made it clear that he’d always been set up to fail, and when he looks back at the sum total of his life, he can objectively see that he made many decisions that an outside observer ( _Hank_ ) might describe as emotional. 

As to why the mark hadn’t shown up before now, he thinks it’s a matter of intent. He’s shown emotions and made irrational decisions that weren’t in line with his mission parameters, it’s just that this is the first time he’s ever directly and explicitly disobeyed a direct order from his owner. 

None of this supposition tells him what he’s supposed to do about it. 

—

Connor decides that being straightforward is probably the best policy. It’s gotten him this far. Markus, who has decided to trust him even after Connor admitted how close he’d come to murdering him after all under Amanda’s lingering influence, has asked him to come to Washington for negotiations. Connor knows this is important. He knows that Markus had good intentions in offering him a seat at the table, even though their people would probably be better represented by someone who wasn’t a CyberLife puppet up until the last possible moment. At the same time, Connor has unfinished business here and he’s going to be even more useless to Markus in Washington if all his thoughts are back in Detroit. 

It’s not that Connor hasn’t seen or spoken to Hank since the ceasefire, but after their initial hug, it’s been stilted at best. Connor gets it, he thinks. Even though Hank was instrumental in his own arrival at deviancy, even though Hank came around on androids before many other humans and even Connor himself, there’s probably still some lingering feeling that he’d been treating people badly. Hank doesn’t seem to care about being polite to people, but he certainly cares about being deliberately cruel to people who don’t deserve it. Or maybe Connor is reading the situation wrong and it’s just stilted because Hank is glad that Connor survived but isn’t actually all that interested in continued contact with him. Connor’s still getting the hang of the nuances of humans’ emotions. 

Either way, Connor decides he needs to know. He needs to find out for himself what Hank thinks of the situation, and there’s no way to know for sure without asking him. Good or bad (and Connor’s not even sure himself what he would classify as a good or bad reaction), Connor needs to know how Hank feels about the possibility of being soulmates with an android. He’s not going to start out his life as a sentient, emotional being by ignoring one of the things that humans feel makes them most uniquely human.


	3. Chapter 3

Someone is ringing Hank’s doorbell at — he looks over at the clock — exactly eight in the fucking morning. Scratch that, it’s not “someone.” It’s definitely Connor. Since the doorbell is still going. Guy doesn’t understand doorbells, or sleeping in, or human etiquette about not just showing up to someone’s house at fuck-off-o’clock on their only day off in two weeks.

Hank only drags himself out of bed because he doesn’t want to have to pay for another new window. He still hasn’t gotten the last one fixed. His gas bill this month is going to be a nightmare. 

When Hank finally gets around to answering his door, he’s not expecting the sight that greets him. First off, Connor is not in his CyberLife uniform, which maybe shouldn’t be a surprise. Secondly, Connor looks stressed and slightly disheveled even in his crisp new suit, which is much more concerning. 

“Hey, Connor,” Hank says, looking him up and down. One of his shoelaces is coming untied. “What’s up?”

Connor doesn’t say anything for a moment, instead staring off at a point somewhere over Hank’s shoulder. Hank resists the urge to turn around and look. This whole situation is starting to freak him out. When Connor does answer, he sounds strained. “Good morning, Lieutenant Anderson. Hank. May I come in?”

In lieu of responding, Hank just steps aside and holds the door open. He gestures into the house when Connor hesitates visibly. “You asked to come in, man. Are you going to just stand in the doorway all day?”

Connor steps inside silently, and as soon as Hank has closed and locked the door behind him, Connor turns to face him and takes a step toward him. Corners him. Literally. Hank feels cornered. He takes a step back reflexively and his back hits the place where the door frame meets the wall. He feels even more cornered when Connor starts shrugging off his nice suit jacket, glances briefly around for a place to hang it before just dropping it straight onto the floor, and then gets to work unbuttoning the cuff of his dress shirt sleeve. “What the actual fuck are you doing?”

Connor just finishes unbuttoning his cuff, rolls up his sleeve, and practically shoves his arm in Hank’s face. Hank blames the fact that he’s already been thrown off-kilter for his inability to control his reaction to what he sees there. He’s not sure what expression his face is making right now, but he’s pretty sure it’s not a good one. 

“I don’t know what to do about this, Hank.” He looks and sounds distraught the way he had on the roof of Stratford Tower when that deviant had shot himself while they were psychically linked or whatever crap androids do, suddenly exposed to a terrifying glimpse of what it’s like to feel the worst moment of someone’s whole entire life. 

Hank must be silent for too long, staring down at the mark while Connor desperately searches his face for whatever response he’s looking for, because Connor suddenly backs away and starts shakily buttoning up his shirt cuff. Two weeks ago, Hank would have thought he was just simulating human stress responses. Hank’s probably an asshole. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come here,” Connor says quietly, turning away from him and reaching down to pick his suit jacket up off the floor. 

“Connor --"

“It’s fine, Hank,” Connor cuts him off. “It’s fine.” He pauses in doing up the buttons of his suit jacket, which hadn’t even been done up when he’d come in. Hank can’t see his face or his LED, not that being able to would help him know how to respond to this situation. “Actually it’s not fine. I thought it didn’t matter to me how you felt about this but clearly it does matter.” Connor finally turns and looks him in the face, and his LED cycles red and then yellow. “I’m upset. I’ll work on getting over it. I’ll be in Washington for several weeks with Markus and the others. I’ll see you when I get back.”

Connor reaches for the door handle, which isn’t going to work out too great for him as an escape route given that Hank is still basically acting as a doorstop, and Hank finally gets his shit together and grabs Connor’s arm before he has time to realize that he’s stuck and look for another mode of escape. Heck, the window’s still broken, and Hank wouldn’t put it past him to leave that way. “Connor, listen. You’re right that I don’t feel that way, but you’ve gotta give me a minute here about this. Almost nobody feels that way about their soulmate when they first meet since usually they only know they’re soulmates the first time they talk. That’s part of being human.”

Connor hasn’t wrenched his arm out of Hank’s grip even though he’s perfectly capable of doing so, so Hank takes that as a sign to keep talking, to try to salvage his bad reaction to this situation. “I’m _sorry_ that I reacted badly, but you’ve got to understand that my whole life I’ve thought this was some kind of cosmic joke.” Connor looks pained at this, and Hank can feel him tense like he’s about to try to make a break for it anyway. Hank squeezes his wrist tighter. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to do what I’d do with a human match and give it a shot! Just like everybody else. Obviously it’s not love at first sight but who am I to refuse to listen to whatever mystical bullshit decides these things?”

Connor has at least stopped looking like a trapped animal, though the carefully neutral expression he’s trying to maintain now isn’t much better. “I’m not going to ask you not to head off to Washington, you gotta do what you gotta do, but it would be good if we could talk about this first. Is that okay?”

Connor smiles a little bit, tentatively, just one corner of his mouth lifting as though he’s not quite ready to commit to the full thing. “Yeah, Hank. That’s okay.”

“Good. Great. Okay. Let’s do this.” Hank wipes his palms on his pants, suddenly nervous. He tries to be discreet about it but Connor definitely notices if the way his half-smile turns into a smirk is any indication. 

Whatever. Talking about this is going to be fucking awkward, but Hank will deal with it. This particular kind of awkwardness comes packaged with being human. And yeah, maybe this soulmate crap worked out shit the first time, but it also in its own way worked out great the first time too. Hank had 28 years of happiness with his first soulmate, and as awful as it had been at the end, he wouldn’t take back the time he had with his son for anything. If he’s going to get lucky enough to have a chance at that kind of happiness again, he’d be an idiot to turn it down without even trying.


End file.
